Archive for April 2009

A Favorite Fritillaria

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On a snowy day like today, it's great to look back at the blooms I photographed just a week ago.

Fritillaria meleagris, a spring flowering bulb of the lily family, 12-15" tall. Needs a moist, well drained soil rich in humus. Therefore, not a plant for my garden (these photos were taken at Denver Botanic Gardens)!

I love the checkerboard patterning on the petals--can you see it?

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Stepping into Spring

Wow, there is just so much going on with regards to growing food, saving farms and creating new gardens. Its been a while since I posted some of my photos. Here is a brief look at what's been going on this Spring.

Carole and I giving our 'Introduction to Food Production' workshop to the BCGEU.

Ilse and I gave a workshop on 'Square Foot Food Gardens' at the Fraser Basin Youth Congress.

Betsy Mae and I felt very fortunate to participate in the UBC Farm Trek.
It was such an amazing event!


Meet Catriona - she is our School's Project coordinator.

Here are some of her containers in preparation for the students to arrive.

Betsy Mae worked hard to help us prepare the pots for planting.
Renovations to improve the safety of the SPEC roof deck are almost done.
Carole and I were pretty happy that we manged to put together our new shed.



The SPEC building in Spring.
Happy planting:)
Cheers,
Tara


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Alpine Cuties

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Despite the news reports of snow, snow, snow, by yesterday the City of Denver was back to springtime green, green, green!

I spent an hour with my camera at Denver Botanic Gardens and was especially tickled to see so many of the trough gardens in bloom. Most of these are filled with little alpine plants that I know very little (read, nothing) about but still enjoy for their interesting textures and delicate blooms. OK, I’ll hazard a guess and say that perhaps something here is a Saxifraga or a Lewisia.

Although several of our local nurseries offer a small selection of rock garden plants, you may want to check out Laporte Avenue Nursery in Fort Collins. They sell primarily via catalog, but are open to the public by appointment.

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It's a start


Here are some pics of our first beautiful day in the garden -


We dug holes to plant 2 small blueberry bushes. 2 varieties - Dixi and Duke - planted togehter increase yields.


Our lasagna gardens will hopefully prevent the root nematode problem
In each of the 3 beds we planted today we mixed 3 bags of topsoil, 1 bag of mushroom manure, and 1 bag of organic 'soil energizer' from david hunters with the leaves that had been there as mulch from last fall.
In these 2 beds we planted mesclun, alyssum, carrots, radishes, and spinach.


Reused plastic from the soil and manure lines the beds...maybe they'll last a little longer....

A teepee for the beans - make sure they're pole beans!!


Taking a break....

square foot plot number one -
so far has peas, carrots, lettuce, radish, spinach and alyssum
(plastic tray to protect little seedlings)


The strawberries survived the winter!

We won't have a regular meeting but if you'd like to swing by and check it out, we'll be in the garden around 2pm on Sunday the 12th. In the meantime we're trying to secure a donation of city compost to fill the rest of the beds, as adding all that soil can really add up!


Happy Easter everyone!


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Roller Coaster

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Despite the recent roller-coaster series of warm days-snow days, the garden is pushing into spring. I love these bright little tulips that are now flowering. Their vibrant color and twisted, stripy leaves are among the first to welcome in the new season. This tulip is one of the Greigii types, probably Kaufmanniana (other colors include pinks, whites and multis). It’s been reliably perennial for many, many years.

Another group of plants showing new growth that is always eagerly anticipated are the hardy water lilies. New, red tinged leaves are starting to grow and make their way to the surface of the water. Water lilies mean summertime to me. Whoo-hoo!



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